


Educated Guesses

by cereal



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:16:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skin too tight and blood singing and every part of him screaming out to run, run, run. Not from Rose, not from their life, but run to enjoy it, to feel it, to live it, bright and loud and electric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Educated Guesses

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Challenge 007 over at [Then Theres Us](http://then-theres-us.livejournal.com/). (Its [here](http://then-theres-us.livejournal.com/349586.html) over there, if you prefer livejournal.) Warning for drug use.
> 
> * * *

He gets in this mood sometimes, in this body, in this universe.

Skin too tight and blood singing and every part of him screaming out to run, run, run. Not from Rose, not from their life, but run to  _enjoy_  it, to feel it, to live it, bright and loud and electric.

It was novel when he discovered it, that there were loads of assumptions he made about humans before he became one, and not one of them was correct.

All sorts of things about the way they felt, the way they thought, hundreds of years of nothing more than guesses dashed apart in the space of a meta crisis.

It seemed to him, with only one life, that humans would treasure it, that fleeting time, doing everything in their power to preserve it, avoiding risks and danger and anything that might cut it short.

Of course, he should've known from a time and space ship full of human companions that wasn't the case, but it's so much clearer now, from the inside of a body built around a single heart.

It's the risks and the danger and all that adrenaline that make it all worth living, and he's having a hell of a time remembering to breathe in the between.

"Adjusting," Rose calls it, and he remembers he's done it before.

It's running in the literal sense, until he's ragged in the mornings, sweat dripping down his back as his headphones force feeling and music and rhythm into his ears, into his veins. Feet pounding the cement, everything a blur of sunshine and greenery as he sprints and staggers just to feel the burn in his lungs, the newness and pain of being unable to catch his breath.

"A hobby," Rose calls it, and he wonders what other humans are chasing, or what they're running from.

It's late nights at the pub, agreeing to the round of shots Jake is suggesting because he's already four pints in, alcohol and cigarettes and a song on the jukebox, and let's go, let's go, let's keep this up, this lightning in his nerves, this screaming static in his skull, euphoria and freedom and pressing Rose against a wall in the back until he's hard in his jeans and her chin is red from his stubble.

"Hormones," Rose calls it, and he's hard again, because it's more than that.

It's every bit of junk food the fair has to offer, sugar with sugar and sugar on the side, his finger vibrating as he holds it up and orders one more. He rides the ferris wheel with Rose, and she comes right there at the top of it. His hand up her skirt and his head thrumming with arousal, and how far can he push it, push himself, push her? What can do this body do? Take it out on the road and really open it up.

"Naughty," Rose calls it, and she's starting to catch on.

It's more chemicals after that, inhaled deep and Earthy at a party he doesn't even remember being invited to, Rose gone soft around the edges and he comes, too, this time, on an unfamiliar bed where it goes on forever, his entire body enveloped in her, completely present, and he feels her pulse beneath him in every inch of his skin, the very beating of his heart.

"Amazing," Rose calls it, and the room is still warm and shifting.

It's mistakes he makes in taking it too far, in the back room of some carefully punk club, up his nose nearly on accident, but not on accident at all. White powder that makes him feel like he has the galaxy again, like he'll never sleep, never eat, never be vulnerable again. Rose yells at him, memories of the estate, and what that does to lives, what that does to humans, and he wants to tell her he's not, but he is now, and he listens.

"Reckless," Rose calls it, and he apologizes, but he doesn't regret it.

It's the strategic pulling back, the heady rush of uncertainty when they fight. Will this be it? Will she leave him? The horrible, exciting rush of not knowing, feeling gutted with the curtains shut as he maps out a strategy, a way to make it up to her. He's felt pain before, and loss, but it's so acute now, so raw, and he dives down deep, head under the water, and he wants to rip his chest open just to let the ache unfurl.

"Forgiveness," Rose calls it, and he's never been more grateful.

It's today, tomorrow, every day since and every day prior, each new period, compacting a human life into two-thirds of the time. These are his teens, his twenties, his slow-rolling thirties. A week, a month, a year, a decade, and how old is Rose? That's what he'll be. His life matched to hers and he guards it fiercely, frantically, a foaming rabidity that splits open the lip of Jay from Finance in the middle of a party, and, oh, that's how this human body throws a punch.

"Stupid," Rose calls it, but she's smiling a little when she picks him up from the cell.

It's his own blood rushing to escape, a bullet wound on his shoulder when he shouldn't have played the hero, but someone needed to. It's rising bruises in darkened rooms, but never too dark, never all the way, because he has her now, and he wants to see her.

"Reminders," Rose calls them, and she maps the newest ones with her tongue.

It's slow and unwinding for several, long years.

"Settling in," Rose calls it, and they mark another month that they haven't made the gossip papers.

It's the first wail from their daughter, the frantic crying to signal a life that's about to begin, a whole new world, outside the safety of the only one she's ever known. (It's the way he knows the feeling.)

"The greatest person in the world," Rose calls her, and he agrees, but he's got a close second in mind.

He gets in this mood sometimes, in this body, in this universe.

"Living," Rose calls it, and he's sure he's getting better at it.

* * *


End file.
